Email marketing strategies for high volume sales periods

Email is a key, low-cost marketing channel during high volume selling periods. Customers expect to learn about the deals from their favorite brands directly to their inboxes, so preparing your email marketing strategy is a crucial step to secure conversions of new and existing customers for high-volume sales periods and beyond.

In this video, you’ll learn how to:

Build a high quality email subscriber list to ensure you are delivering your message to as many potential customers as possible.
Plan your email calendar and get crafty building impactful emails that work for mobile and desktop.
Learn how to understand your email engagement metrics and build an effective long term email strategy.

[MUSIC PLAYING] With big holidays tied to retail promotions, shoppers' inboxes can be overflowing with emails about discounts and sales. That's why it's more important than ever to have an email marketing strategy that helps your campaign stand out from the rest. Hi, I'm Rachel. And today, I'm going to give you five steps to building a winning email marketing strategy that will help you build brand awareness and strengthen customer relationships.

Step one, start building your email subscriber list early. This is one of the most important steps to set you up for success during a big sales period. And it's important to start well in advance of your sale day. How? Build your subscriber list by gathering email opt-ins. As you draw your list, you'll want to make sure the email addresses you collect are high quality and actual people that have agreed to receive marketing communications from you.

This will ensure your emails get delivered to a subscriber's inbox and not their spam. Adding a newsletter sign up to your online store is a great way to collect emails and grow your subscriber base. This can be in your navigation menu or a pop up on your store. For the best results, we recommend having an email sign up on your store year round. And to maximize entries, offer something valuable in return for visitors' email like exclusive discounts, a welcome promotion, or VIP access.

That way, any traffic going to your store can convert into emails even if they're not ready to make a purchase. Step two, warm up your subscribers by sending emails regularly before the high volume selling period. If you go from sending zero emails to one every day for a week, not only will your subscribers be less engaged but mailbox providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail won't recognize you and flag you as spam.

That's why it's crucial to not wait until your sale to start emailing your subscribers. You can welcome them to your brand and build hype by showcasing your best sellers or new launches in a weekly email to engage your group of subscribers a few weeks before your major sale. This will not only build your reputation to your subscribers but also to mailbox providers. And with a positive reputation, it's more likely that your email will be sent to the inbox and that your customer will actually open them.

Step three, put yourself in your subscriber's shoes. Now imagine your subscriber's experience. It's a big sales weekend and you've received 200 plus emails from different brands. Which ones are you most likely to click on? Mapping the experience for your subscribers is a key step to making your initial strategy optimized for conversion.

Since over 50% of emails are read on a mobile device, it's crucial that the content of your email is optimized for mobile devices. Try to make it as easy as possible for subscribers to find and click on the CTA button and get to your online store. And make sure the path from email to online store is seamless for your customer by having similar messaging on your store.

Now for step four. Create your email calendar. The frequency of emails you send over the sales period may depend on your offer and for how many days it will be live. With Shopify email, you can build campaigns and schedule them ahead of time. Here's a simple email schedule we suggest to follow. Plan to send a teaser email two to three days in advance of your sale to build hype and ensure your brand is top of mind.

On the day of the sale, let your subscribers know your offer is live with a sale announcement email. And finally, if your sale lasts a few days, send a reminder email the day before it ends to convert those last minute shoppers. Step five, build impactful emails when it comes to email copy. This is where it's key to keep it clear and concise. Subject lines are make or break when it comes to a subscriber deciding to open your email or not.

Including the offer details and promotion code often performs really well. It's important that the subject line or free header aren't too wordy. If they are, it'll get cut off on mobile devices. The hierarchy of content is important in your email template. While you may want to write a paragraph to explain all of the amazing features of your products, subscribers are looking for information on the promotion fast.

Aim to have a really strong hero image and the majority of information visible near the top of the email. With Shopify email, you'll get access to pre-built templates that help you send emails that are true to your brand and optimized for mobile devices. An email marketing strategy is an important your marketing during busy sales periods. And it's just as important to keep the momentum going after the sales end.

To put this strategy into action, check out Shopify email. Packed with pre-built templates and features like scheduling, Shopify email makes it easy to send emails to your customers so you can focus on getting your store ready for your sale. I hope you use these five tips to build trust with new subscribers and keep your loyal ones engaged. Happy sending.